On Monday morning, it was reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had resigned, effective immediately, according to several media outlets. However, NBC is now reporting that Rosenstein is instead refusing to step down.
The initial report claiming Rosenstein had resigned appeared in Axios, which reported, “Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has verbally resigned to Chief of Staff John Kelly in anticipation of being fired by President Trump, according to a source with direct knowledge."
A few days ago, reports surfaced — in what appeared to be an orchestrated media leak campaign — that Rosenstein had floated the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment and wearing a recording device while he was around President Trump. However, according to quotes attributed to Rosenstein, the departing deputy attorney general appeared to be sarcastic, not serious, about his intention to “wire the president.”
Nonetheless, Rosenstein as deputy attorney general has acted as a thorn in the side of the president's mandate for the entirety of his tenure.
Over the course of the past two years, Rosenstein has taken a lot of heat from the president’s supporters for his consistent enabling of the Robert Mueller special counsel probe into Russian interference, which has yet to find any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
He also signed off on controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications to extend surveillance on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, who, without firm evidence, was accused of being a Russian spy. Later, it became apparent that the warrants against Page amounted to extreme overreach on the part of the federal government. Rosenstein defended his decision to sign off on the surveillance warrant by stating that he may not have read the whole application before signing off on it.
In an interview with Geraldo Rivera this morning, President Trump said he would investigate all of the facts before making a decision about Rosenstein's future.
If Rosenstein steps down, Solicitor General Noel Francisco would step in as interim deputy attorney general while the Trump administration searches for a replacement for Rosenstein.
The executive branch’s targeting of staffers assisting with congressional oversight represents a dangerous intrusion into the legislative branch’s functioning.
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